Manhattan - 1994's Spiel des Jahres Winner

I was talking with a fellow designer at a Protospiel about past Spiel des Jahres winners. About how it is sad that some of these games, these games that helped propel the board game hobby to the heights it is today, are no longer available. We then started looking at some of the games, and I couldn’t help purchasing a few. One that struck my interest was Andreas Seyfath’s Manhattan, 1994’s winner. He is better known for creating the 2002 game Puerto Rico. He and his wife won the 2006 Spiel des Jahres for Thurn and Taxis, which is also on my list to procure but it is quite, QUITE, expensive. Anyway, back to Manhattan, the subject of this episode. What caught my eye was the table presence. You are physically stacking buildings to build skyscrapers in the eponymous city.

In Manhattan, you and your opponents are fighting to construct skyscrapers in six different neighborhood districts of the island: Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Midtown, Downtown, Soho, and Wall Street. Points are scored in three ways: owner of each building (player with the top floor), control of each district (player controlling the majority of buildings in a district), and owner of the tallest building (player with top floor of the building with the most floors). When the game ends, the player with the most points wins. Can you outthink, outwit, and outbuild your opponents?

Manhattan on BGG

"BOARD GAMES BUILD BRIDGES"